Various implementations of interconnect technologies (e.g., an optical/electrical interconnect technology) provide an interface that enables data communication between a computer and peripheral devices. The interconnect technologies may also enable the communication of data between computing devices (i.e., nodes) via cables/connectors. Optical data communication, for example, is in general any form of telecommunication that uses light as a transmission medium. Light in general requires less energy than copper cables and produce less heat than electrical telecommunication.
INTEL® Thunderbolt™ (which may be also known as Light Peak™) and SEAMICRO® SM10000™ represent types of a converged interconnect fabric technology that is connection-oriented and/or bus protocol independent and may use electrical or optical cables. INTEL® Thunderbolt™ is an interoperable standard that can deliver a bandwidth that exceeds Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Serial ATA and replace the multitudinous connector types (e.g., USB, FireWire, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort) with a single connector. INTEL® Thunderbolt™ chips interconnect two or more computing devices/peripheral devices and transmit and receive information for both PCI Express™ (PCIe) and DisplayPort™ protocols. The INTEL® Thunderbolt™ chip switches between the two protocols to support communications over a single electrical or optical cable. Because certain interconnect technologies, such as INTEL® Thunderbolt™, have not been accepted by a significant number of computer/peripheral device manufacturers that rely on USB or application software developers that rely on existing networking standards, an average consumer may have to wait several years before taking advantage of such a technology.